Beginning Again This New Year - The Crosswalk Devotional - December 29

Beginning Again This New Year
By Lynette Kittle

Bible Reading
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” - Lamentations 3:22-23

How many of us have waited, planned, and began a new year with our hearts and minds set on a new attitude, outlook, and goal, only to lose steam a few weeks or even days or hours into the new calendar year?

Still, New Year’s  Day offers individuals hopes of a fresh start, a new beginning, with the incentive of moving away from past disappointments and failures, a day that seems more than any other day of the year to encourage us to start anew and begin again with a clean slate.

Sadly, though, many of us, if not most, give up if we falter or slip up on this new lease on life, thinking we’ll just have to wait until the next calendar year to start over again.

Everyday With God Is A New Beginning

But a new beginning doesn’t have to wait for another year to begin because God understands our weaknesses and frailties and doesn’t set us up to only have one opportunity a year to start over.

As 2 Corinthians 5:17 explains, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

God is all for leaving the past behind us and starting anew, urging us in Isaiah 43:18 to “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

He is all about making things new again, as stated in Isaiah 43:19, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Beginning Again Starts in Our Hearts

But how does this happen in our lives? Exodus 36:26 describes what God wants to do for each and everyone of us, when we seek to start anew with Him. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

It’s a new life process God begins within us that is fulfilled by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. As the Apostle Paul explains, “We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4). 

King David Knew How to Begin Anew

Starting anew involves being open to God’s instruction. As Psalm 25:5 reveals, King David knew how to ask God for His instruction. “Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long.”

For many, looking at David’s life is a mixed bag. Although it seemed he relied heavily on God to teach him to do His will, having a tender, teachable heart, as expressed through his passionate psalms. He seemed to be constantly asking God for guidance, understanding that he couldn’t do it on his own, relying on God to lead him.

Likewise, in Psalm 119:12, David understood the importance of praise in preparing him to receive God’s instruction. “Praise be to you, Lord; teach me Your decrees.” 

Yet we also read of David’s weaknesses: being led into temptation by worldly passions, committing adultery, stealing another man’s wife, committing murder, giving in, and following the lusts of his heart. 

In no way did God condone David’s sin, and as Christians, it can be hard for us to understand how an individual who God placed in power could so easily fall into sin and yet still be.

called by God a man after His own heart.

Acts 13:22 describes God’s thoughts on him. “After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

David’s life reveals how God truly gives us a way to begin anew each and every day, no matter the depth of our sins and weaknesses.

Intersecting Faith & Life:

If you’re struggling today to begin anew after falling short, feeling like you don’t deserve or have a right to ask for God’s help, be like David and reach out to God, asking Him to teach you His ways, and start beginning again today. And if you fall tomorrow, don’t hesitate to ask God to help you start over again because His compassions never fail and are new every morning.

Further Reading:
Starting Over New Each Day

Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Lemon_tm 

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.

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